politics

Joe Biden's family grew up in a proud middle-class Irish Catholic family and idolized the Kennedys. They saw the Kennedys – successful, wealthy, attractive Irish Catholics – because the embodiment of the American dream. Biden says Robert F. Kennedy Sr., whose bust stands within the Oval Office, inspired him to turn out to be a public defender and eventually run for office.

“The Kennedys, as a group, were the people he modeled his life after,” said former Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), who was Biden’s longtime chief of staff and stays his close friend. “Not just his political life, but his life.”

When the Kennedy family rallied behind Biden in Philadelphia last week and gave their full-throated support to his re-election campaign, consciously selecting him over one in every of their very own – Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s running as an independent – it was not fairly politically helpful. It was also an especially personal victory for Biden.

Privately, Biden told advisers that Thursday was probably the greatest days of his campaign, in keeping with people conversant in his comments who spoke on condition of anonymity to debate private conversations. The event was attended by greater than a dozen members of the prolonged Kennedy family, including six of Kennedy Jr.'s siblings, and Biden was particularly moved once they said the president was the candidate to hold on their family's legacy.

Publicly, Biden was visibly touched by the overwhelming support from Kerry Kennedy, his rival's sister.

“This was the most meaningful introduction I've ever had in my life, other than my sister's introduction,” Biden said Thursday after her introduction.

The Kennedy family hopes their support will help Biden politically. Kennedy Jr.'s independent presidential campaign is threatening to take votes away from Biden, leaving Democrats increasingly concerned that it could significantly harm the president's probabilities of defeating Donald Trump. The final result could hinge on a number of thousand votes in key states, and plenty of Democrats say they lost the White House in 2000 and 2016 due to such third-party insurrections.

Within the Kennedy family, Kennedy Jr.'s cosmopolitan campaign was painful, people conversant in their discussions said. When he initially challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination, his family was frustrated – and made it clear they were on Biden's side – but largely ignored the candidacy publicly. They weren’t concerned about Kennedy Jr.'s influence on the election, since Biden would almost actually defeat him for the Democratic nomination.

But because he’s an independent candidate with ballot access across the country, relations are increasingly concerned about his ability to influence the election — and damage their family's legacy.

“Almost every single one of Joe and Rose Kennedy’s grandchildren supports Joe Biden,” Kerry Kennedy said in her introduction to Biden. “That’s right, the Kennedy family supports Joe Biden for president.”

She later compared Biden on to her father, the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.).

“Dad stood for equal justice, for human rights and freedom from want and fear,” she said, “just as President Biden does today.”

The Kennedy family occupies an unusual place within the American political imagination. President John F. Kennedy was a young, charismatic president who energized a generation of Americans until his shocking assassination in 1963. His brother Robert, an excellent more tortured figure, was seen by many Democrats because the embodiment of tragic idealism while running for president after his own assassination in 1968.

Scandal also followed the family, and while members of the following generation also achieved political office, none of them achieved the political and cultural influence of their parents. Still, the Kennedy mystique stays for a lot of Democratic voters, especially older ones.

This background is one in every of the the reason why Kennedy Jr.'s candidacy has given such a twist to the present presidential campaign. The revered senator's son and namesake has embraced controversial, baseless claims about every thing, including vaccines and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — which has unnerved many Democrats and, apparently, a few of his own relations.

Several of those relatives have had targeted conversations with Kennedy Jr. about his candidacy, but to no avail, and plenty of people near him say they don’t imagine he’ll drop out of the race. That understanding fueled the family's desire to hitch in a public endorsement of Biden, people conversant in their conversations said.

“This was not easy for anyone, and I think what no one should forget is that despite the scope of the event, given the dynamics of this race, it was not easy for anyone,” former Congressman Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.), said a grandson of the elder Robert F. Kennedy, who now serves as Biden's special envoy to Northern Ireland, in an interview. “But it was an important thing.”

Like other members of his family, he declined to comment directly on his uncle's presidential campaign. Several of the candidate's relations have condemned Kennedy's comments on vaccines and other issues, but they’ve been careful to not portray their support for Biden as an explicit rebuke of their relative. Instead, they are saying it reflects their belief that there are only two possible outcomes in November: Biden wins or former President Trump wins.

“Given the reality we find ourselves in, there are only two people who can win this race,” Joe Kennedy said. “There are only two parties that have the necessary structures to win this race. So every additional candidate in this dynamic withdraws support from one side or the other.”

For his part, Kennedy Jr. has not commented on his family's approval because the incident. However, before his siblings met with Biden, he wrote on social media: “I heard that some of my family members will be supporting President Biden today.” I'm glad they’re politically energetic – it's a family tradition. We are divided in our opinions but united in our love for each other.”

At age 81, Biden has discovered that his own path — one which has included each enormous political success and immense personal tragedy — parallels in some ways in which of the Kennedy family.

After immersing himself within the Kennedy story as a toddler, Biden found comfort within the embrace of family after the deaths of those closest to him. A couple of weeks after his election to the Senate in 1972 and before he was even sworn in, Biden's wife and daughter were killed in a automobile accident. His sons Beau and Hunter were injured and Biden considered giving up his seat to look after them.

But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), together with other colleagues, convinced Biden to remain. Kennedy helped Biden establish his Senate office and have become a mentor and shut friend.

“I know the president is someone who places a lot of value on family and places a lot of value on loyalty, and when you're there for someone at their most vulnerable, he's going to remember that,” Joe Kennedy said of the connection his family to Biden. “It is this relationship that, in my opinion, had a great influence on the members of both families, especially the older generation. They have also suffered immense loss and so has he, so there is a commonality there.”

In addition to Joe Kennedy, many other Kennedys work in Biden's government: Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, is ambassador to Australia; Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Edward Kennedy's widow, is the ambassador to Austria; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, one in every of Kennedy Jr.'s siblings who appeared on stage with Biden, previously worked in Biden's Labor Department as an adviser on retirement and pension issues. (The two ambassadors aren’t allowed to have interaction in political activity and weren’t present on the election event on Thursday.)

That rally in Philadelphia, led largely by Joe Kennedy and Kerry Kennedy, got here after relations made it clear they desired to publicly support the president. Given the scale of the family, the organization took months. While there was discussion of holding the event in Massachusetts, the Kennedys' traditional home, relations decided against it because most of them not live within the state.

The Kennedys also desired to campaign in a battleground state, and after the rally, a few of them knocked on doors and met with Biden campaign volunteers in Philadelphia.

This month, nearly 50 members of the Kennedy clan gathered on the White House for the annual St. Patrick's Day celebration, taking a personal tour of the Oval Office and posing for a photograph with Biden within the Rose Garden. Biden and lots of the Kennedys shared the photo on social media, the primary implicit rebuke of Kennedy Jr.'s campaign from his relations.

But during that visit, like Thursday's event, Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign was not specifically brought up, relations said.

“A lot of what was going on in the Oval Office, people were talking to him about the presence of President Kennedy and my father and where he put the bust and why he likes to look at my father's bust when he's making difficult decisions,” said Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

She added: “We have a wonderful connection with Joe Biden. We love politics. We love this country. We love Ireland.”